The Local Pulse

Inspiration

Cape Town’s energy is unmatched. Every weekend, there’s a market tucked behind a mountain, a food truck by the sea, or a live band in a hidden alley. But discovering these moments in real time? Nearly impossible unless you already know the right people or follow the right page.

We wanted to change that. The Local Pulse was born from a simple idea: what if you could literally feel the rhythm of your city, live, as it happens?

It’s about giving visibility to local vendors, pop-up events, and creators who rarely make it to mainstream listings, empowering communities, and helping people connect through local experiences.

What it does

The Local Pulse is a real-time event discovery app that helps users find live local happenings, markets, pop-up shops, performances, and food trucks across Cape Town.

It combines AI-driven event detection, social scraping, and a vibrant mobile-first UI to show what’s happening right now.

Key Features

Live Feed of Events: Real-time updates of events sourced from social media and local databases.

AI Event Scraper: Uses natural language processing to detect and summarise events from platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X (Twitter).

Interactive UI: A sleek, minimal interface with glowing event cards and soft animations for a “living” city feel.

Go Live for Vendors: Vendors can instantly post their pop-up or event by dropping a pin and uploading a photo.

Smart Recommendations: Suggests events nearby or related to a user’s interests.

How we built it

The app was built using modern, accessible tools to move fast and stay scalable: Frontend: Built with React (Next.js) and Tailwind CSS, optimised for mobile. Backend: Powered by Python (Flask) with REST endpoints for data ingestion, event search, and social scraping. AI Layer: Integrated with Gemini API for intelligent event detection and summarisation. Data Scraping: Uses SerpAPI and open social media APIs to extract event-related posts in real time. Database: Firebase Firestore for live data sync. Maps & Geolocation: Mapbox GL JS for location-based visualization. Hosting: Deployed on Google Cloud Run for scalability and performance.

Challenges we ran into

Parsing and verifying events from social posts without duplicates or false positives.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a fully functional, live event discovery prototype that updates in real time. Successfully implemented AI-powered social scraping that detects real-world events without manual input.

What we learned

How to combine AI and open data to empower local communities.

What's next for The Local Pulse

Expand to other South African cities and eventually the whole world. Add community-driven “vibes” (live ratings or reactions). Let users capture and share “Pulse Moments” from events. Integrate ticketing and vendor analytics.